Interrogation

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted yesterday to prevent the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods that already are banned from use by the U.S. military. The bill, which would fund and set policies for U.S. intelligence agencies, passed 222-199. It now goes to the Senate, where it faces strong Republican opposition. Even if the Senate approves the bill, the White House said in a statement that the president's advisers recommend that he veto it. The White House objects to the interrogation provision and other sections that would increase congressional oversight.

WASHINGTON -- The CIA in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two al-Qaida operatives in the agency's custody, a step it took in the midst of congressional and legal scrutiny about the CIA's secret detention program, according to current and former government officials. The videotapes showed CIA operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects - including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in CIA custody - to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed partly because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.

ATLANTA -- Does it matter what the rest of the world thinks of the United States? Does it matter that our recent foreign policy has frayed alliances and created enemies? Since we remain the world's only superpower, with the biggest and best military, should we care about our reputation? Yes, we should. Despite what Vice President Dick Cheney and neocon Norman Podhoretz think, we can't shoot and bomb our way out of this war. While military force is sometimes an appropriate response to terrorists, the U.S. also needs to cultivate friends and admirers.

WASHINGTON -- Michael B. Mukasey appeared yesterday to be all but assured of becoming the nation's 81st attorney general when two Senate Democrats broke ranks and said they would support the retired federal judge to head the Justice Department. While acknowledging serious concerns about his views on interrogation techniques, Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer of New York said they would vote to confirm Mukasey when the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up his nomination to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales on Tuesday.

It was good to see the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee focus a little yesterday on the equivocations of Michael B. Mukasey over the issue of torture - equivocations that the senators had seemed intentionally not to notice a day earlier. Mr. Mukasey is the nominee for attorney general, and because he is so clearly a better man for the job than Alberto R. Gonzales was, he is virtually assured of Senate confirmation. But his semantic dodging on torture - and on warrantless wiretapping - was a disappointment.

Why does U.S. pursue cruel torture policy? Thank you for the editorial about the Justice Department's secret legal opinions allowing extremely harsh CIA interrogations ("Enforce the law," Oct. 5). Most people do not know that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 permits evidence obtained through torture to be used by military commissions, thereby codifying for the first time in our country's history a policy permitting torture. The recent executive order governing CIA interrogation does not close secret prisons or end the practice of kidnapping and sending prisoners for interrogation to third countries known for torture.

WASHINGTON -- Facing pointed new questions about tough methods used by the administration in the interrogation of terrorism suspects, President Bush insisted yesterday that "this government does not torture people." At the same time, administration officials are adamantly refusing to discuss certain tactics that have reportedly been allowed - such as head-slapping and water-boarding - in efforts to procure information from suspects detained in secret prisons. After years of controversy over the conduct of U.S. authorities in the war against terror, including abuse of inmates at the U.S.-run prison at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the Bush administration is facing a renewed onslaught of questions over secretive interrogation tactics, and the furor is now expected to play a major role in the confirmation hearings for Michael Mukasey, nominated to be attorney general.

The Court of Special Appeals has overturned the conviction of a Columbia woman in the choking death of a fellow Loyola College doctoral student in 2005, ruling that Howard County detectives waited until she made incriminating statements to advise her of her Miranda rights. Unless Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler decides to appeal the ruling to the state's highest court, prosecutors will either reach a plea agreement and lower Melissa Burch Harton's sentence or retry her on the charge of involuntary manslaughter.

PARIS -- The CIA held suspected al-Qaida militants in secret prisons in Poland and Romania, enlisting top officials in those countries to create and conceal the facilities, a European intergovernmental agency alleged yesterday. Current and former intelligence officials in Europe and the United States told the Council of Europe that the interrogation facilities were hubs of a global anti-terror campaign that used torture, clandestine flights and extrajudicial abductions known as extraordinary rendition, according to a report by the council, which is based in Strasbourg, France.

Imagine this: Jack Bauer, America's favorite counterterrorism hero, has just returned from an average day at the office, bringing a terror suspect to near-death by strangulation, staging a mock execution of a child, and shooting someone to get a confession. As he settles down to dinner and a cup of coffee, he notices something amiss. It's his left eye, twitching violently. Ignoring the symptom, he heads to bed, only to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, dreaming of blood on his hands.